Welcome to the first episode of the revival of Live well and Flourish.

In this episode, I'll share why I'm bringing back the podcast after its hiatus, explain some exciting changes to the format, and most importantly, talk about how this revival will help you on your journey to living an excellent life.

Welcome to Live well and Flourish, where I help you understand what it means to live a flourishing life.

I'm your host, Craig Van Slyke.

If you're ready to think beyond material.

And external success, if you're ready to.

Take control of who you are and the kind of life you live, if you're ready to flourish, this is the podcast for you.

Welcome to the revival of Live well and Flourish.

I put the podcast on hiatus a few months ago because I kind of felt burned out.

Producing the podcast just wasn't fulfilling anymore.

Over time, however, I found that I missed thinking about how to live an excellent life.

But bringing back Live well and Flourish adds about more than an excuse to think deep thoughts.

I realized that I wasn't fulfilling my purpose anymore.

At least not sufficiently.

My purpose in life is to help others live excellent lives of meaning and purpose.

Although I pursued that purpose in a variety of ways for several years, Live well and Flourish was a huge part of living my purpose.

Because I wasn't sufficiently pursuing my purpose anymore.

I felt an odd sense of.

I'm not even sure how I can express the feeling.

It was this weird sense of something being off deep in my soul.

Yeah, I know how that sounds, but that's really the best way I can express it.

Something just wasn't being nourished in my soul.

Something fundamental in my life was off.

The only big change I could identify was Live well and Flourish, no longer being a part of my life.

So Live well and Flourish is returning driven by two underlying motivations.

My desire to reflect more deeply on living an excellent life and my fundamental need to fulfill my purpose.

While these motivations might seem a little self focused, I'm not sure that matters because I am 100% convinced that you and others will benefit by listening.

Yeah, maybe some episodes won't resonate with you, but I'd be willing to bet that you'll get something out of each episode, even if it's just confirmation of what you already know.

There are going to be a few changes to Live well and Flourish, but nothing that fundamentally alters its purpose.

One thing that will change is that I'm taking the perspective that an excellent life, a life of virtue, purpose and fulfillment, isn't planned.

It emerges.

I'll talk more about this idea in the next episode, but for now I'll just say that the emergent life is the polar opposite of the grind culture.

The emergent life focuses on setting conditions for living an excellent life rather than planning one out, and that can be especially useful in turbulent times like now.

This second change is going to sound odd, but stay with me.

Doing a solo podcast is kind of tough in some ways.

The host me?

I have to carry the whole load.

It's easy to fall into the trap of being preachy, which is something I think happened to Live well and Flourish.

I started to feel like I was lecturing to you rather than talking with you.

That's not great, unless the host is incredibly talented, which I am not.

But having a co host or bringing on guests, well, that has its own set of challenges and editing, unpredictability in a bad way, scheduling and production complexity.

I do two other podcasts, one with a co host and one with a co host and guests.

Those podcasts serve their purposes pretty well, but Live well and Flourish is ultimately an intimate peek into my brain, or maybe my soul.

It is intently personal, so co hosts and guests don't really work.

Although I may invite some people to join me from time to time.

I was faced with a dilemma.

Neither solo nor co hosted, nor guests quite work for Live well and Flourish.

So what should I do?

Here's where it gets weird again.

Please stay with me.

This is going to sound like a tangent, but there's a point.

In the last couple of years, I've become enamored or maybe obsessed with generative AI like ChatGPT.

In fact, I write a newsletter and co host a podcast on AI in higher education called AI Goes to College.

What does this have to do with Live well and Flourish's revival?

Well, I think I'm going to have an occasional co host.

ChatGPT.

ChatGPT has a very cool capability called Advanced Voice that lets you have very realistic conversations with the AI Chatbot.

I swear, it seems real sometimes.

For some episodes, ChatGPT, who I'm going to call CG and I will talk about topics that require some back and forth to nail down.

Solo episodes will be straightforward.

Get to the point.

Get out.

Conversations with CG will be less structured.

The discussions will flow naturally, going back and forth, sometimes following twisty paths to get to something important.

After each of these conversations, I'll do a recap at the end to try to pull everything together.

My conversations with CG aren't going to be some parlor trick that lets me show off.

They're a way to show how ideas can emerge through dialogue.

More importantly, they're a way to make you a part of the journey in a little bit different way, even if it's just listening in on our conversations.

I think of these conversations as kind of coffee shop chats with someone who's really well read, thoughtful, smart, and perhaps most importantly, tolerant of my meandering thought processes as I try to figure things out.

Frankly, I really don't know how any of this will play out.

I just know that it will be interesting and I'm confident that the right path will emerge over time.

So here's what you can expect Live well and flourish is returning with some changes, but its heart remains the same, helping you live an excellent life.

The underlying philosophy is that an excellent life of virtue, purpose and fulfillment emerges.

It cannot be planned out and forced.

Finally, sometimes it'll just be me, and sometimes I'll have conversations with ChatGPT CG here's my promise to you.

I'll do my very best to provide insights that will help you live an excellent life.

I'll do my part, but you'll need to do yours as well.

We'll talk more about that in the future.

For now, I very much hope you'll join me on the path to living a life in which excellence emerges naturally and and beautifully.